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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Let Them Eat Bûche de Noël

You can not go two steps in this town

Without tripping over a log

A chocolate log or a bûche de Noël

Which evidently extends its welcome well past Noël into the celebration of Epiphany with a French king cake or galette des rois featuring yummy almond paste frangipane stuffed puff pastry and a surprise lurking favor inside but that's for a later post.

The variations on a theme are endless in Paris. Traditional bûche is made from a genoise or other sponge cake, generally baked in a large, shallow Swiss roll pan, frosted, rolled to form a cylinder, and frosted again on the outside. The most common combination is a basic yellow sponge cake, a rolade, frosted and filled with chocolate buttercream; however, many variations on the traditional recipe exist, possibly including chocolate cakes, ganache and espresso or other flavored fillings.

This macaron-decorated bûche de Noël looks like a kid's choo choo train to me.

Two choo choos meetup at a crossing. LOOK OUT!

Most of them resemble a bed with a headboard, footboard with stuff thrown on top...

Those chocolate choo choos would be the ones for me. Yes they are delicious and I always intend to make one at xmas but so far this has not happened. I'm so happy you're there, Carol and hope you're getting settled. Felicitations! xx

I´ve been to Paris last week and also took a lot of photos of bûches de Noël, but I didn´t taste any of them. Being Austrian, I´m wondering about the Austrian bûche... We don´t have any bûches and I even don´t know about any similar sweet... Let´s wait what Merisi tells us...

Carol, I actually make them about every other year, I'll send you a pick of the one I did this year. They are not difficult to make just time consuming - have a great 2013. I'm moving and packed away the painting you did of myself, daughter and dogs - can't wait to see it again!

Delicious post! French pasteries are beautiful works of art. And there's nothing like them. Buche de Noel is good. My favorite commercants in France are the patisseries. This is my first visit here -- perfect site for my French students and me to enjoy. Merci! Your watercolors are fabulous.http://www.writemomentswithgod.blogspot.com

Loved the Bûche de Noel - made them often, years ago, a jelly roll with chocolate filling and coating with meringue mushrooms.

All the best, Carol and Happy New Year to you and yours.

Thought you might be interested in the following... Comme d'habitude" (French for As usual) is a French song written in 1967 by Claude François and Jacques Revaux with lyrics by Claude François and Gilles Thibaut

Then Paul Anka, a Canadian adapted the words in English for Frank Sinatra for his signature song, My Way. Apparently Frankie boy claimed not to like the song.

For many years, I experimented with different cuisines for our Christmas dinner....the year we did Kwanzaa food was particularly disappointing. It was, after all, based on slave food. I finally settled on the good old British roast beef and yorkshire pudding but with the French yule log for dessert. THen my son went vegetarian and only the yule log survives from our tradition. I generally stick with chocolate and mocha flavors.

P.S.:Is it heresy to mention Little Debbie's "Swiss Roll" or the "Ho Hos" made by Hostess in connection with the venerable Bûche de Noël? Albeit undecorated, their cylindrical shape does remind me of the famous French cake.

Carol, already I am so envious of your Parisian posts. How could you not sample at least two...or twelve! of those buches?

Decembre looks very delicious in Paris, and I am sure that Janvier will also be glorious. You've reminded me of some vintage Julia Child tv segment explaining the intracies of that very traditional, very amazing log.

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♥carol gillott♥

Paris, Ile de France, France

I moved to Paris 2 years ago. I should have done it sooner but that's how the macaron crumbles. Living on the Ile Saint Louis next to the Seine after the 19eme is 'la cerise sur la gâteau'. It doesn't get any better. I've painted watercolors for Bocuse, Champagne Mumm, Guerlain, Frederick Cassel, The Russian Tearoom and the Maharana of Udaipur.
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